Date: September 30, 2008

Bulletin Number: UCS-139

Subject

Retroactive General Salary and Location Pay Increases for Employees in the Unified Court System (UCS)

Purpose

To notify Unified Court System agencies of the Retroactive Salary and Location Pay Increases, to explain OSC’s automatic processing and to provide instructions for payments not processed automatically.

Affected Employees

Effective
Date(s)

Administration Pay Period 13L - Paychecks dated October 15, 2008.

Background

Chapter 276 of the Laws of 2008 implements agreements between the State of New York and various bargaining units in the Unified Court System and provides for General Salary and Location Pay Increases for non-judicial employees.

Contract Provisions and Eligibility Criteria

April 1, 2007 General Salary Increase
The legislation provides for a 3% Salary Increase for hourly and salaried employees in graded and NS grade 560 positions unless the UCS Administrative Board determines part or all of the increase will be withheld from certain NS unrepresented employees.

Annual employees receive a 3% Salary Increase, rounded to the next dollar or $950, whichever is greater. (Employees must be Active, or on an approved Leave on the incumbency date of 4/1/07 or earlier to be eligible for the $950 minimum.)

Hourly employees receive a 3% Salary Increase, rounded to the next cent or $.52, whichever is greater. (Employees must be Active or on an approved Leave on the incumbency date of 4/1/07 or earlier to be eligible for the $.52 minimum.)

April 1, 2008 General Salary Increase
The legislation provides for a 3% Salary Increase for hourly and salaried employees in graded and NS grade 560 positions unless the UCS Administrative Board determines part or all of the increase will be withheld from certain NS unrepresented employees.

Annual employees receive a 3% Salary Increase, rounded to the next dollar or $975, whichever is greater. (Employees must be Active or on an approved Leave on the incumbency date of 4/1/08 or earlier to be eligible for the $975 minimum.)

Hourly employees receive a 3% Salary Increase, rounded to the next cent or $.53, whichever is greater. (Employees must be Active or on an approved Leave on the incumbency date of 4/1/08 or earlier to be eligible for the $.53 minimum.)

Salary Deferral
Chapter 276 of the Laws of 2008 calls for a salary deferral of any increases for salaries in excess of $115,000 for all employees until a law is passed to increase the salary of Supreme Court Justices to a rate greater than $136,700 or March 31, 2011, whichever comes first. Employees who hold a salary above $115,000 prior to the processing of the 2007 and 2008 raises authorized by this law will retain their salary achieved prior to the raise processing. Employees whose salary is increased to greater than $115,000 by the raise processing will have their salary deferred to $115,000.

UCS Administration has determined that the salary deferral will commence when the 2008 salary schedule practically goes into effect (when transactions are submitted based on that schedule), which has been determined to be for transactions effective September 18, 2008 (the begin date of the pay period in which the retroactive increases are applied) or later.

Deferral Exceptions
Individuals who are newly appointed to unrepresented NS grade 560 positions may have their salaries set above $115,000. UCS Administration will manage these cases.

The legislation provides for employees in Bargaining Units G9, SA, SD, SG, SK, SN, and 87 who are currently receiving LOC or LMH and who are Active or on an approved Leave on 5/14/08, and employees in Bargaining Units CT, 86, and 88 who are currently receiving LOC or LMH and who are Active or on an approved Leave on 7/7/08, to receive Supplemental Location Pay effective 4/6/06 as follows:

Employees in NYC, Rockland, Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk counties who are Active or on an approved Leave on 5/14/08 for all represented bargaining units or 7/7/08 for unrepresented Bargaining Units CT, 86, and 88 shall receive CLS in the amount of $2,009 effective 4/5/07.

Employees in Orange, Dutchess and Putnam counties who are Active or on an approved Leave on 5/14/08 for all represented bargaining units or 7/7/08 for unrepresented Bargaining Units CT, 86, and 88 shall receive MHS in the amount of $1,004 effective 4/5/07.

OSC will automatically insert rows in the Job Data page to reflect the April 2007 and April 2008 3% or guaranteed minimum Salary Increases for all annual employees in represented and unrepresented bargaining units except as noted below and for employees in Agency 05680.

These increases will be processed in the following manner:

For employees in eligible bargaining units who, on the effective date of the increase (4/5/07 and 4/3/08) have a status of Active, Paid Leave (except those on Military Stipend Leave), or Leave without Pay with a reason of WDL, OSC will insert a row on the employee’s Job record, effective 4/5/07 and 4/3/08, using the Action/Reason codes of PAY/SAC (Pay Rate Change/Mass Salary Increase).

Employees who are on step will remain on step unless the employee receives the guaranteed minimum increase.

Step to step movement or the percentage increase will be applied to employees who do not meet the incumbency eligibility stated above.

OSC will update all subsequent Job Data rows, provided the employee is in an eligible bargaining unit, using the Action/Reason code of PAY/CSL (Pay Rate Change/Correct Salary).

For employees who are on a Leave of Absence without Pay (not on WDL) on 4/5/07 and 4/3/08, the increase will be applied to the employee’s Job Data record only if the employee is returned to the payroll in an eligible bargaining unit. Rows will be inserted as of the effective date of the Rein Leave using the Action/Reason code of PAY/CSL (Pay Rate Change/Correct Salary) with the new salary.

Exception: The Salary Increase will not be applied to any Job row in which the employee is receiving less than the minimum salary rate on the March 31, 2007 Salary Schedule or if the information on the employee’s Job record is different from the information contained on the Position Data record, using the position information for the number stated in the NYS position field on the employee’s Job record.

Salary Deferral
OSC has created a new action/reason code CSD (Courts Salary Deferral) which will be used to identify PAY rows where an employee’s salary has been held at the current rate or reduced due to the Salary Deferral legislation. A CSD row will be inserted as follows:

If an employee holds a salary greater than $115,000prior to raise processing, OSC will process all raise rows, and insert a new row for the same dates with the next available sequence number using the Action/Reason code of PAY/CSD, and reduce the salary back to the salary achieved prior to the raise processing. All subsequent rows will be updated accordingly.

If the salary on an inserted row exceeds $115,000as a result of the raise processing, OSC will insert a new row for the same date with the next sequence number using the Action/Reason code of PAY/CSD, and reduce the salary to $115,000. All subsequent rows will be updated in the same manner.

Withholding of Increases for NS Grade 560 Unrepresented Employees
The salaries of certain NS Grade 560 unrepresented employees may be impacted due to the new legislation regarding the salary deferral. Therefore, withholding determinations for unrepresented employees will be addressed by UCS Administration at a later date.

Recalculation of Military Stipends
OSC will recalculate Military Stipend payments for employees who went on a paid or unpaid Military Stipend Leave on or after 4/6/06 and, if applicable, will update the employee’s Job record to reflect the appropriate biweekly stipend.

Location Pay

Eligibility Criteria:

Employees in represented Bargaining Units G9, SA, SD, SG, SK, SN, and 87 who are currently receiving LOC or LMH will receive a retroactive CLS or MHS adjustment for 2006 if the employee is Active or on an approved Leave on 5/14/08.

Eligible employees in all represented bargaining units will receive a LOC, CLS, LMH or MHS adjustment for 2007 if the employee is Active or on an approved Leave on 5/14/08.

Employees in unrepresented Bargaining Units CT, 86 and 88 who are currently receiving LOC or LMH will receive a retroactive CLS or MHS adjustment for 2006 and a LOC, CLS, LMH or MHS adjustment for 2007 if the employee is Active or on an approved Leave on 7/7/08.

There are no incumbency criteria for the 2008 increases; therefore, eligible employees in all bargaining units will receive the 2008 adjustments.

Automatic Processing

OSC will automatically update existing Location Pay (LOC) and Location Mid-Hudson (LMH) rows, effective 4/5/07 or later, for all employees in eligible bargaining units who have an existing row effective 4/5/07 or later with the amounts provided in the following chart.

OSC will automatically update existing CLS (Courts Location Supplemental) and MHS (Mid-Hudson Supplemental) rows, effective 4/5/07 or later, for all employees in eligible bargaining units who have an existing row effective 4/5/07 or later with the amounts provided in the following chart.

OSC will automatically insert a row on the Additional Pay page effective 4/6/06, 4/5/07 or 4/3/08 to add CLS or MHS rows for all employees in eligible bargaining units who are now eligible to receive CLS or MHS, with the amounts provided in the following chart.

All subsequent rows will be updated accordingly.

Payable Date

LOC

CLS

LMH

MHS

4/6/06*

$1302

$1950

$651

$975

4/5/07

$1341

$2009

$671

$1004

4/3/08

$1381

$2070

$691

$1034

*The 2006 amounts have not changed from the previous contract; this information is provided due to the newly eligible bargaining units for Supplemental Location Pay.

OSC Retroactive Processing

OSC will automatically calculate retroactive adjustments resulting from the April 1, 2007 and April 1, 2008 General Salary Increases and the April 2006, 2007 and 2008 Location Pay Increases.

Automatic retroactive payments will be processed for certain earnings, such as Overtime and Holiday Pay, reported on the Time Entry page. The following is a list of the earn codes that will be automatically adjusted:AS1, ES1, EXT, HPA, HPC, HPH, LMH, LOC, LSB, LSK, LSL, LSM, LSN, LT1, OTC, OTD, OTF, OTG, OTK, PPS, PRM, RGS

Additional Information Regarding Retroactive Payments

For employees who have worked in more than one agency since the effective date of the Increase, all retroactive adjustments will be paid in the most current agency, provided the employee was paid by all agencies using the same Employee Record Number.

For employees who have worked in more than one agency and have been paid from more than one Employee Record Number since the effective date of the Increase, the retroactive adjustment for earnings in each Employee Record Number will be paid in the most current agency, under each Employee Record Number.

For employees who are Inactive or on Leave Without Pay at the end of Pay Period 12L, the retroactive raise adjustment will be applied to any Overpayment (OVP) set up in Additional Pay that has a Goal Amount and Goal Balance that are not equal. The system will recover the entire overpayment, provided the check is sufficient. Otherwise, the entire check will be taken.

Employee’s status is Active or Paid Leave on the last day of the pay period being processed: The system withholds the amount stated in the Earnings field or an amount equal to the difference between the Goal Balance and the Goal Amount, whichever is less. If the check is not sufficient to recover the amount determined by the system, the system will take the entire check. Note: The agency may wish to increase the Earnings amount in order to recover a greater amount of, or the full amount of, an outstanding overpayment by:

Inserting a row in Additional Pay using the Earn Code OVP.

For the effective date, enter the first day of the current pay period.

Enter the increased amount of earnings to be deducted that pay period in the Earnings field. This amount must be preceded by a minus sign.

Do not change any other fields. Save changes.

If the goal amount is not recovered in full by this change, the agency must submit another OVP row the next pay period and reduce the Earnings amount appropriately.

Transactions entered by the agency during Pay Period 13L should be submitted using normal salary calculations and the March 31, 2007 salary schedule.

Salary transactions entered during Pay Period 13L with an effective date prior to 9/18/08 are not subject to the salary deferral and should be handled as if the transaction had been entered in a timely manner. The agency should enter any salaries as appropriate from the March 31, 2007 salary schedule. The automatic processing will apply the raises and hold to the existing salary or $115,000 as applicable.

If a PAY, POS or Transfer transaction is submitted with an effective date 9/18/2008 or later, the agency must submit the salary using the March 31, 2007 salary chart. The automatic raise processing will apply the April 2007 and April 2008 salary increases and if the resulting salary is greater than $115,000, a CSD row will be inserted to reduce it back to the appropriate deferred salary. OSC staff will review all transactions submitted in Pay Period 13L with an effective date of 9/18/08 or later for accuracy.

Salary corrections submitted after the raise processing is complete will be added on top of the automatic raise rows.
The agency should enter a PAY/CSL transaction to correct the automatic raise row. If applicable, the agency should submit a PAY/CSD row to apply the salary deferral.

Hourly Employees
Agencies must submit the increases for all eligible hourly employees in Pay Period 13L.

Agency 05680
The agency must submit General Salary Increases for eligible employees in Agency 05680 in Pay Period 13L and submit the CSD transaction as appropriate by the payroll cutoff date.

NHRP709
Agencies must submit General Salary Increases for eligible employees who appear on Control-D Report NHRP709 issued prior to processing of the automatic increases.

Agency Actions in Pay Period 14L or Later

Effective Date of 9/18/08 or later

PAY, POS or Transfer transactions entered by the agency during Pay Period 14L or later with an effective date of 9/18/08 or later, should be submitted using normal salary calculations and the April 2008 salary schedule.

If a PAY, POS or Transfer transaction with an effective date 9/18/08 or later results in a new salary greater than $115,000, a CSD transaction must also be submitted by the agency to reduce the new salary to the appropriate deferred salary.

Effective Date Prior to 9/18/08

PAY, POS or Transfer transactions entered during Pay Period 14L or later with an effective date prior to 9/18/08 are not subject to the salary deferral. Exception: the recalculation of the raise row(s) and subsequent rows would be subject to the deferral.

If the effective date of transaction is prior to 9/18/08, the agency must base the salary on the March 31, 2007 chart as if the raises had not been processed.

If applicable, a CSD transaction must also be submitted by the agency to reduce the new salary to the appropriate deferred salary.

Updating subsequent salary and non-salary rows (i.e. LOA, Rein Lv, DTA) will require that the agency submit a PAY transaction that applies the newly calculated salary and an additional PAY/CSD row to apply the salary deferral if applicable.

Agency Actions: Retroactive Processing

Retroactive adjustments will be calculated automatically for regular, additional pay, and certain miscellaneous earnings based on the Salary and Location Pay Increases.

Time Entry earnings submitted with an amount will not be retroactively adjusted. Therefore, the agency must report the adjustments when the following earn codes were used to report earnings on or after 4/6/06: RGO, LSI, HPL, OTO, LTO, ASO, OWO, OTT, ADJ, EMG, ES2.

Additional Pay earnings previously reported using ALP or ASL will not be automatically adjusted. The agency must report the adjustment for the previous ALP or ASL earnings effective on or after 4/6/06.

Note: Agencies must review the records of those employees who will receive CLS or MHS for the first time in 2006 and submit a Supplemental Location Pay adjustment (ASL) as necessary.

If a check was returned on an AC 230 for dates on or after 4/6/06, the agency must review the retroactive adjustment for that employee, as the system does not consider AC 230s when processing retroactive adjustments. Therefore, the agency must report an adjustment of earnings.

If an employee’s Pay Basis Code changed from HRY to ANN or ANN to HRY, the agency must review the retroactive adjustment to determine if it is correct and, if necessary, report an adjustment of earnings.

If an employee received earnings on an AC 39 (Typewritten Payroll) prepared by OSC for earnings on or after 4/6/06, the agency must submit an adjustment for all earnings paid on the typewritten payroll.

If the Earn Code OVP was reported in the Additional Pay page since 4/6/06 to recover overpayments that occurred on or after 4/6/06, the system may not calculate the retroactive adjustment correctly. Therefore, the agency must review the automatic retroactive adjustment and submit the appropriate adjustment of earnings.

If an employee had a transaction reported on a retroactive basis that resulted in an overpayment of earnings to the employee, and the automatic negative adjustment processed by the system was not used as the method to recover the overpayment, the employee may not receive the appropriate retroactive adjustment in Pay Period 13L. Therefore, the agency must review the automatic retroactive adjustment and notify OSC, using a Job Action Request of DTA/COR (Data Change/Correct History), if the automatic retroactive adjustment should be processed in Pay Period 13L.

If RGS was previously submitted using a date range that exceeds the number of days reported, the system will calculate the adjustment of earnings based on the number of workdays within the range. Therefore, the agency must report an adjustment to reduce the automatic retroactive adjustment.

Adjustments for earnings that are calculated automatically, such as overtime, will be calculated incorrectly if the dates previously reported as a single entry on the Time Entry page overlap the effective date of a salary and/or location pay increase. The system will calculate an adjustment for all earnings reported in the single entry using the salary or Location Pay in effect on the end date of the entry. Therefore, the agency must submit the necessary adjustment to reduce the automatic payment.

Agency Procedure: Reporting Adjustments in the Time Entry Page

Agencies must use the Earn Code AJR (Adjust Raise) on the Time Entry page to report all retroactive changes due to the implementation of the Salary and Location Pay Increases.

The following Control-D report is available prior to processing of the automatic salary increases.

NHRP709 Mass Salary Increase Exception Report
This report identifies employees who will not receive an automatic General Salary Increase. Fields on the report include EmplID, Employee Record Number, Employee Name, Grade, Bargaining Unit, Pay Basis Code, Part-time Percentage and Salary. The agency must reconcile the employee's Job and/or Position information so that automatic processing can occur. If Job and Position are to remain mismatched, a Pay Change must be submitted to increase the employee’s salary. The report identifies the reason the employee’s salary will not be increased with one of the following messages:

Salary Below Minimum

Position and Job do not match

The following Control-D reports will be available after the processing of the automatic increases on 10/6/08 and the review of additional Job Request transactions have been completed:

NHRP704 Mass Salary Increase Report
This report identifies all employees who received the General Salary Increase. The report identifies the employee’s last salary that was automatically increased in an eligible bargaining unit. Other fields on the report include the EmplID, Employee Record Number, Employee Name, Effdt, Eff Sequence, Grade, Bargaining Unit, Pay Basis Code, Part-time Percentage, Action Reason, Increment Code, and Old and New Comp Rate.

NHRP709 Mass Salary Increase Exception Report
This report identifies employees who did not receive an automatic General Salary Increase. Fields on the report include EmplID, Employee Record Number, Employee Name, Grade, Bargaining Unit, Pay Basis Code, Part-time Percentage and FTA Salary. The report identifies the reason the employee’s salary was not increased with one of the following messages:

Salary Below Minimum

Position and Job do not match

Deduction Information

All general deductions for employees whose status is Terminated, Retired or Deceased will be automatically cancelled by OSC with the exception of the following:

Code

Narrative

410

Health Care Spending Account

420

NY Dependent Care Contribution

425

Repay State Loans/Debt

426

Higher Ed Repay State Loan

428

Dependent Care

433

Total Unemployment Ins Owed

500

Medicare Deficiency

501

Social Security Deficiency

502

NYS SS/Medicare Deficiency

GARNSH

Garnishments

HIATRG

Regular After Tax Health

HIATSP

Special After Tax Health Adj

HIBTRG

Regular Before Tax Health

HIBTSP

Special Before Tax Health Adj

Undeliverable Checks

Inactive employees may be eligible for a payment as a result of the adjustments. If the agency has made an effort to deliver the check to the employee but the check has been returned and is undeliverable, the agency should forward the check to the NYS Department of Tax and Finance, Division of Treasury, per instructions in Payroll Bulletin No. 456.

Checks issued to eligible employees who are now deceased should be returned with a completed Next of Kin Affidavit (Form AC 934-P) and a Report of Check Exchange (Form AC 1476-P).

For recipients of a previously deceased employee's payroll checks where a Next of Kin Affidavit and Report of Check Exchange forms have been submitted, OSC will accept a photocopy of these forms to process the exchange of the check.

Payroll Register and Employee’s Paycheck/Advice

All retroactive adjustments will be displayed on the payroll register and the employee’s paycheck stub or direct deposit advice.

Questions

Questions about processing transactions may be e-mailed to the Non-Executive Audit mailbox.